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The #1 Thing New Leaders Must Do To Take Over Teams Successfully

In today’s business world, full of industry disruption and rapid change, it is often necessary for a new leader to step in and take over established teams. Whether that’s brought about to address a critical turnaround situation or just a standard changing of the guard, when leadership changes, some resistance from existing employees is usually par for the course.

Too often though, I’ve seen strong, highly capable leaders unintentionally make those transitions far more clunky and alienating than they ever needed to be.

Case in point: A CEO I worked with in Silicon Valley, with an impressive track record of previously leading two high-profile tech companies, was brought into a third company to revive its stalled profits and growth. Upon first arriving, this CEO made a gesture that indicated he was off to a great start rallying existing employees: He invited all staff to submit their ideas on how to turn things around for the better. It was a smart way to build connection and consensus with the new teams.

Things soured quickly, however, when, after asking for that input (which the employees thoughtfully and earnestly submitted), the new CEO disregarded it all and just did what he originally planned to do from the start.

Now, things get tricky here because his plan of action was actually spot on, entirely sound and strategically a very wise approach. But he made a crucial misstep, bigger than just disregarding employee input — worse, he assumed that because he was ready to embrace change that they were all ready to embrace change.

‘Speed’ and ‘strategy’ are not the only important factors in driving successful change.

Taking over a new team in times of change is like trying to grow new grass in an existing yard. Yes, watering the seeds produces an initial spurt of visible growth. But soil needs water and air to help seeds grow. Watering too much, too fast floods the pores of the soil. Without needed oxygen (that is, space to breathe and slowly absorb the water), the roots suffocate, resulting in a yard with a shallow and weak root system. Green grass will grow at first but then quickly turn brown and die off.

As an executive coach, I’ve witnessed this vicious pattern occur repeatedly when new leaders take over established teams. A new person steps into a role and focuses on making rapid change in the first 90 days. They pour the proverbial water on non-stop, shuffling teams around, restructuring projects, changing reporting lines, upending established culture and policies and procedures. But then, 18 months later, that leader ends up fired from the role.

This “90 days to make a change, 18 months and out the door” pattern occurs over and over, because new leaders usually favor chasing quick, surface-level wins over implementing long-term, sustainable change. Their genuinely smart plans ultimately fail because they don’t take the time to win over the existing employees and gain their authentic buy-in around that vision first.

The first task a new leader must undertake is accurately gauging the change readiness of the people they’re responsible for leading.

This involves learning the nuances of the systems already at play, including the dynamics of the human system (e.g., the people and teams). Strong leaders pay attention to balancing the polarity of change by devoting equal attention to both the speed and the depth of change.

Employees need more than just new marching orders. They also need to establish trust and rapport with the new person in charge, as well as develop new habits, new mindsets and a genuine understanding of their role in the transition that’s occurring.

Sorry, there is no precise recipe or easy, one-size-fits-all approach to this, which is the very reason so many leaders skip right over the human aspect of change management. But, this is where truly successful leaders bring their A-game. They lean into the ambiguity of the situation and approach it like any other project.

Rather than rush implementing comprehensive change all at once, they pace themselves. They create small, low-risk experiments to get an accurate barometer of their team’s true change readiness. For example, a new leader might first hold a meeting and ask the team how they feel about restructuring and observe their response rather than announce changes to the team without warning.

After each small experiment, test, analyze, adjust, test again and then implement revised change accordingly. The goal is to find the edge of the team’s comfort and nudge them to steadily grow beyond it withoutpushing them too far, too fast to avoid panic and outright resistance.

One remarkable leader I worked with mastered the art of gauging his team’s change readiness by simply asking himself every day, “How can I best support the team today to be ready for change?” Then, he then went and did whatever that was. This approach helped his teams succeed in achieving both short-term and long-term goals, and that socially intelligent leader received three promotions in just two years.

It’s easy for new leaders to assume that, if they snap all of the other pieces of necessary change into place (including strategy, policy, etc.), that buy-in from the team will also just snap in place by default. But, it doesn’t. And realizing in hindsight what you should have done better as a new leader is nice, but it’s wisdom that comes too late.

So, pause and pace yourself.

Give existing employees a little air and time for the water to soak in. Ensure your own long-term success by investing time and patience in assessing (and honoring) your team’s change readiness.